Everyone is a Religion
To my great and eternal shame, I have been very gently peer-pressured into blogging about TTRPGs. I only hope that with time I can find penance and absolution for succumbing to the temptation of jumping on Prismatic Wasteland's Blogclave Bandwagon.
Here's an Idea
I like it when the people in my games are people. And it’s not that I don’t think Elves, Orcs, Dwarves, and Halflings aren’t people. Instead, I think the weird biological essentialism in RPGs can be a bit of a distraction from the humanity of the characters.
In my current Cairn campaign, I’ve decided to kind of re-flavour the stereotypical fantasy ancestries into distinct religious and cultural groups.
It’s really easy to do and it’s worked out pretty well so far. We can even drop some letters to come up with appropriate names for the respective deities or pantheons or prophets, so that we have worshippers of El, Or, Dwar, or Hob.
Some Examples
The worshippers of El are generally insular, they tend to look down on those who don’t share their beliefs. They believe in the importance of living slowly and long, and that it is possible for one who is sufficiently dedicated to the path of El to live for a dozen centuries. As a result of various schisms, they’ve split into groups that believe the path of El can only be found in the woods, in the sea, in glittering cities, or in the darkest places of the world.
It is very easy to do; think of the tropes that you find compelling. What do religiously or culturally Elvish people believe about sleep and do they try to avoid it? Consider why and how things like mining and metal work are holy to someone who was raised Dwarvish. Imagine how Orcs preach about the holiness of conflict and conquest. Hobbits believe that eating and drinking and living well is the best way to honour Hob. What about those who revere Huma? God, they’re religious capitalists traders aren’t they..
Why Though
I think that this also helps with some of the traditional problems, a character can adopt a belief structure, they can convert, they can be raised in a culture and choose to leave it. We can keep some aesthetic trappings if we’d like, if they’re both human, an Elvish person would certainly present themselves differently from a Dwarvish one, their clothing, their callouses, their facial hair. We can imagine people with different beliefs coexisting peacefully or lean in to the tension. It’s also almost certainly easier for players to understand what is important to someone who chooses to follow Dwar than it is to remember which one is Moradin or Pelor or Lathander.
Does this mean that we’re getting rid of everything fantastical? Not at all! We can still have giants and monsters, and if anything I think they feel more fantastic when all the people you’ve talked to are just people who believe different things. Last session my players met some mushroom folk in a sewer, and I think that the fact that physically unique people are rare makes that type of discovery and interaction feel even more special.
God's Favourites
But, of course, we’ve forgotten something crucial. No, not about clerics, sorry I don't really know what a Cleric of Huma would do or why it would be interesting. What about the followers of Gob? Who are these strange and terrible believers in Goblinism, what do they believe in? I think the best answers are the ones that you come up with for yourself, but I can only imagine that they are the most splintered group of them all. There are dozens of goblin popes and they definitely don’t have conclaves when it’s time to choose a new one.
Some of them believe that constructing dwellings is taboo, and so they live in caves and ruins. Some regularly ingest certain herbs as a sacrament that change the colour of their skin, some file their teeth, some cosmetically point their ears. Some believe in the importance of strength, some believe that lying cheating and stealing are divine, and some believe in the importance of material things but abhor commerce. They believe in reincarnation, they love life more than anyone else and believe that they will get to live again as a goblin if they die in a way that is surprising, glorious, or funny. Even if their conviction and morale might fail them sometimes in the moment (they’re only human after all).